The present application relates to plates for aligning bone pieces.
Numerous devices that join or distract bone pieces have been described. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 3,866,607; U.S. Patent Application Publications 2005/0043732, 2006/0036240, 2007/0123880, 2007/0270855, 2007/0293863, 2008/0147124, 2009/0234359, and 2009/0192514; and PCT Patent Publications WO 2007/126622 and WO 2009/062522. However, to the applicants' knowledge, no such device provides for both compression and distraction of the bone pieces, with precise fine adjustment of the degree of compression or distraction. A device providing that variety of functions is useful for an array of treatments including fracture repair, bone fusion and distraction osteogenesis. The present invention provides such a device.